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Thursday, 25 May 2017

E2B v1.93b with SDI_CHOCO offline package support

The E2B v1.93b BETA download is now available from the Alternate Download areas. You can use it to update your E2B Flash drive.

v1.93b has an improved version of the ChocBox.cmd script which makes choco offline packages.

We can now add almost any Chocolatey application to an SDI_CHOCO configuration as an offline install.

This means we no longer need an internet connection to use SDI_CHOCO and can now install drivers, Windows updates and applications offline using any unmodified Microsoft Windows ISO install file (Win7+).

P.S. There is now a Chat facility on www.easy2boot.com, if you have a quick question for me.

E2B OFFLINE DEMO STICK (280MB)

WARNING: Do NOT use the Update E2B button as this DEMO version will overwrite your current SDI_CHOCO configuration files!

If you want to make an E2B DEMO USB stick without having to configure anything or add apps, you can download E2B_v1.93a_OFFLINE_SDI_CHOCO_DEMO.exe from the Alternate Download Area (280MB), add your Microsoft Win10 ISO and then pick any SDI_CHOCO XML file to wipe your hard disk and install Windows 10 + a few drivers + a few apps automatically. This version has some Snappy Drivers and app packages (Foxit, ProduKey, notepad++ and WinMerge) which is why it is so big. I will remove it in a few days.
To add more Snappy drivers, run the Snappy executable. To add more apps, read the E2B web page here.

Note: This version has an older (buggy) version of ChocBox.cmd - you can quickly update it using the Update button in v1.93b or later.

Details

Since there are thousands of applications in the Chocolatey repository, we have a wide choice of ready-made application packages to choose from.

There are just a few (?) packages which are unfortunately not supported as offline choco packages (such as FireFox). However, these packages tend to be the larger, well-known applications and so they should have their own downloadable, self-contained install packages available (for instance, for FireFox, you just need to run "FireFox_Setup.exe /S" to install it silently).

Make your own Configuration Set

Download the v1.93a BETA version (not the DEMO version).

To test it, I suggest you start with the default SDI_CHOCO configuration that is already present in E2B.

The steps are basically...

1. Run ChocBox.cmd to make each offline package
2. Add the packages to your E2B USB drive
3. Edit the MyStartup.cmd file to install the packages you want
4. Add the OfflineChoco.TAG and NoInternet.TAG files to the configuration folder

Then you simply boot to E2B, select any Windows 10 Install ISO, select the XML file (e.g. ZZDANGER_Auto_WipeDisk0_Win10ProUK_with_SDI_CHOCO.xml) and sit back and watch it automatically install.

When a new version of Windows is released, you simply use the new Windows install ISO file.

After installation, you can inspect the log files in the C:\TEMP folder if there were any problems.

If you try it, please let me know if it worked or if there were any problems. If you don't feed back, I will assume no-one actually uses SDI_CHOCO and will not bother to do any more work on it!